Help on My Yamaha rxv1400 with Paradigm soundign way to bright for my room

[eddy13]

Ok I have a 15x12 room with 12 foot ceilings and I have Paradigm mini monitors as mains cc370 center and atoms for rears. Sometimes when playing music or playing on my xbox i find the sound to be to bright and sometimes harsh towards my ears . One thing I can tell you with this receiver is its very detailed to detailed to be exact and very crystal clear. I feel this receiver emphasizes this way to much and not to much mids. I feel it runs bright in my house. I had a old denon 1800 and although it was a little bright in my room it was not even close to being this detailed but i think it empasized more mids and it sounded alittle more warm. Is this a problem with my room or is yamaha a very detailed receiver which emphasizes detail and clarity while other receivers may run warmer and sound fuller but lack detail. Shoudl i get another receiver. I must admit in matrix i can hear things with this receiver that i never heard with my denon but my denon sounded i beleive fuller but not as detialed...

[Dudley]

I would say the speakers/placement are the reason more so than the reciever. The diff between 1 reciever and another is about one tenth of the difference between two speakers.

If you had thick curtains and lots of carpeting and plush furniture that would tone down the highs, and bring out the mids.

[eddy13]

wait but isnt a denon more of a richer warmer sound and more mids then the yamaha which pays more attention to detail... my dvd movies i feel sound good but xbox games sound a bit to high and not the fullness i want... I feel dvd movies sound warmer than music and xbox games.. the speakers are about 16-18 inches away from back wall and about3 feet from the side walls.

[NoBodyCares]

I think Dudley was spot on. The Paradigm monitors are on the bright side of neutral and are quite hard on the ears. I would not generalize the quality of Denon and Yamaha the way you did. Neither has "signature" sound, unlike some very dedicated small companies.

A few tricks that you may want to try. 1) switch speaker cable to one that has an earlier roll-off or 2) put adhesive one-sided soft material (cork, cloth etc) around the tweeter 3) put them on very good stands with blu-tack or if nothing works...get new speakers.

[eddy13]

and arent B&W speakers the same i heard that paradigm monitors are warmer than B&W

[eddy13]

ill tell you one thing it is crisp and detailed though jaw dropping detailed but a bit bright and an empasize on the highs

[eddy13]

I had denon before with infinty sattelite speakers and i used to get migranes so i guess my room might be the thin I have limited furniture in there hardly any things up on the walls only 2 scall sofas and a amore and a 12 foot ceilinggs which has a opening up above into the dining room kitchen and the rest of the house. Even when i talk in my family room my voce sounds pitchy and echoey

[NoBodyCares]

Not all B&W sound the same either. When I reviewed the CDM1SE (in the UK, quite a few years back) it was surprisingly and disappointingly sharp and almost to the point of being unbalanced. Their 60X series, though, does not have the same sonic signature. So, no, Paradigms and B&Ws do not sound the same, they don't even sound the same within the same brand! I have no doubt that the Paradigm has good details, it is the balance that makes it sound sharp. High-fidelity is all about being accurate, and should not have "emphasis", right?

If you think your room is contributing to it, then add some damping materials. Rugs help, or you can use RPG or Sonex's products. Both work very well for me.

Try putting some stuff around the tweeter first to see if that can reduce some unwanted reflections (which almost always make it sound "sharp"). Remember how the LS3/5A look like?

[joema]

I also have an RX-V1400, with Axiom M60/VP150/QS8 speakers and a Hsu VTF-3R sub. They don't sound too bright to me, at least for most material.

However the RX-V1400 has a built in cal and EQ called YPAO. If mis-adjusted it could affect sound significantly.

The calibration mic measures generated tones and adjusts the 7-band parametric EQ for flat response. Make sure you read the manual, set the EQ for flat, and try this. Run it in "step" mode so you can see the results of each step.

For Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 sources, just use "standard surround", not any of the enhanced modes. For 2-ch stereo sources, try Dolby PLII, which extracts surround from this.

If that still sounds too bright, go into manual setup and switch the EQ from parametric to graphical and turn down the highest freq. band a little.

The receiver/amplifiers main job is amplifying the input signal, not changing it (excepting obvious things like EQ, tone controls, etc). If one receiver truly has a warm sound and another is bright, then one or the other is changing the signal not simply amplifying it. That change is either distortion or an erroneous rolloff/boost in response. You don't want that. In general I don't think most modern receivers do this.

Some material is mixed artificially bright for radio airplay. A good receiver and speakers can reveal this, vs masking it like lesser products can.

[eddy13]

ok I have been using the flat setting. Now I have been playing with this reciever for a week. In the past week i got a entirely new setup. I have new speaker cables that our a week old. I am running Monster MCX-1s for my fronts and center which is 10 guage and my rears have 14 guage good speaker cable. I have Paradigm Mini Monitors for Mains,cc370 for center and atoms for rears. I have a Denon rp91 progressive scan player that at the time costed me about 500 dollars and I have 100 dollar coaxial and optical cables connected with my setup. I have invested alot of my money on my home theatre at least to me its alot. I have a hsu vtf 2 sub. Now My room is 15x15 and I have 12 foot ceilings. I have tiles through out and I do have a center rug but its really not that absorbent as its thin. Also since I am buying new furniture for my family room my family room really has nothing up on the walls I also have 2 slidign glass doors in the family room with drapes and My wall on the left side of the family room goes up only 10 feet with 2 feet being a opening into the dining room and the rest of the house. So as you see my accoustics suck... I feel that dvd movies sound awesome,detail and not to bright actually to me its heaven watchign movies. Now Sattelite direct tv is a mix bag with some shows being a tad bright and the others being a little neutral.. To me xbox games sound more bright than anything. The games emphasize all the high freq of the things goign arround it which to me i have to lower it down a bit and music cds are mixed for me some being a tad bright and some neutral. To me putting the receiver at direct stereo draws more warmer and natural music 2 channel stereo with my optimized ypao eq runs a tad bright on the treble and high freq... I wish everything sounded liek my dvd movies damn even my wife was impressed vs my old Infinty sattelite package and denon 1800. I guess she forgives me spending 2,000 for my setup

[joema]

Eddy, re-run YPAO, but select HIGH this time. That focuses the 7-band parametric correction on the high frequency region, giving it a better chance at fixing that. Make sure the calibration mic is in your listening position. Sit it on a hard surface like a book on the sofa back. Don't put it down in the seat. That would muffle high freqs, causing YPAO to over-boost them in correction.

If that doesn't work, while you are listening to a bright program, switch between parametric and graphical. By default the graphical sliders are flat, essentially doing nothing. You can do that while the program plays, instantly hearing the difference. If graphical-flat sounds better, than something went wrong during the YPAO frequency response check.

Verify the crossover frequency is sane -- from 80 to 100Hz is OK. Sometimes I've seen YPAO pick excessively high crossovers, such as 200Hz. Make sure your bass management setting is SWFR, not FRONT, and not BOTH.

Check your speaker level settings after YPAO, and make sure none are excessively boosted or cut. E.g. if they're all boosted by +6db and the sub is cut by -8db, then your sub volume is too loud and it was trying to correct this. In this case lower the sub volume and re-run YPAO.

Having some programs sound good and others bad is a common experience when upgrading to a better system. There's wide variation in how audio material is mixed and mastered. On a lower end system you often can't hear this -- you just hear the melody or the beat. On a better system you can clearly hear the difference in source material quality, including how it was mastered, mixed, and equalized. This causes some material to sound much better than before, and others will have annoying flaws you were previously unaware of. Although frustrating, that's ultimately good -- you want sonic "truth".

However the fact it sounds better in DIRECT STEREO mode is interesting. That mode bypasses all decoding and DSP, which implies some aspect of those is influencing your sound. I'm suspicious something went wrong during YPAO, and it's artifically over-boosting the high end. Run YPAO in "step" mode, and at the EQ step, write down the +/- db corrections for each band. Each speaker has it's own individual corrections, so step through each speaker, and write each one down. The menu system is non-intuitive, so play around with it until you figure it out. If you see large boosts at the high end, that's not normal and indicates something is wrong.

You have a good system and it should sound great. If none of the above tests give any leads, the next step would be room acoustics.

[Influence]

I have a pair of Paradigm Mini Monitors (v.3s) that are currently relegated to my surrounds, but I did run them for break in (and to hear just how beautiful they sounded) as my mains. I am EXTREMEMLY sensitive to "bright and tinny" speakers and NEVER picked up any harshness in the overall sound and balance of the speakers. Unless you are driving them to extreme volume levels you shouldn't be hearing this. FYI: here's the setup I was referring to:

Paradigm Mini Monitor v.3s (only about 1.5 feet from wall due to space considerations)
Denon 3802 receiver (mixture of direct and eq'd mode with treble cut by 2db)
IXOS Geomety 13 gauge speaker wire, shortly replaced by:
Kimber 4TC wire with Monster banana posts (highly recommended, I couldn't believe the difference this cable made)
Pioneer Elite DV-47Ai with Legato Pro enabled


From reading your posts, you state yourself that everything sounds beautiful when playing DVDs. So obviously the speakers are capable of delivering the sound that you desire. Now the question is, why do they sound so much harsher on CD music? Also, have you tried any music DVDs to see if they sound harsh to you as well? My guess would be no, as you seem to be happy with the Dolby Digital or DTS sound that you are getting from your DVD player. Strangely, DD and DTS tracks tend to have a little more zing to the high frequencies, so it's odd that you aren't having trouble here.

This leads me to look at your other components. Somehow, the harshness is coming through your source components (when playing music) and to the speakers. Personally, I do not care for the traditional Yamaha sound. Yes, they are detailed but every unit I have ever heard has tended to sound a little bright to me. They just didn't have the warmth and beauty that I crave in my components, particularly in the mid-range. That being said, I would start at your receiver. Skip all of the auto-calibration/equalization stuff. Tune it yourself, with your own ears. All that matters is that YOU like the way your system sounds. Plus, history has proven that these autocalibration devices are not as accurate as doing it yourself. Once you get it set the way you want, go back and check your DVDs sound.

Also, have you tried connecting a different CD player to your system? I have never had a Denon DVD unit, so I can't speak to the output of one, but you never know, it could output a harsh signal via it's digital outs (try switching to the analog outputs, just for CD - see how it sounds).

I would not spend too much time on room calibration. If your movies sound the way you want, it's not bad room reflection that is causing the issues with Music.

[eddy13]

ok I understand i heard that the flat setting seems to be the best. When i switch from flat to GQ the GQ setting seems dead comapred to the flat settign. The flat setting seems to open things up a bit. My xbox games to sound a little harsh. When i was runnign ypao I stacked some pillow on top of each other on the sofa to approximately my listening position and run ypao there. Should I put some pillows and stack it up and on top of one of the pillows put a hard book and run it... I will run flat and will try to run high. If i run high will the test tones be the same level or will they go higher . I remember at one time the test tones beign so loud that i had to put a stop to it because my speaker decibals had a +7 gain. When i did run the test it put my mains at about +& my center at about 6.5 my rears at about 7.5 and my sub at about -7.... So what do you think is my best option then guys

[eddy13]

wait what heppens if theres a large boost in the high ends are you taking like the freq of 150 and up that shows some corrections.. If i do have soem spikes here what woudl i do and has anyoen trid to tweak the geq and see how there sound comes out..

[eddy13]

Actually when i run ypao i make sure i turn down all the db level of my speakers to the - side since tho me the test tones sound so loud im afraid it might blow a speaker it already messed up my center aand when i took it back to the dealer he said the tweeter was open and thta it was a factory problem but the test tones opened up my tweeter

[joema]

If graphical (GEQ) sounds better than parametric (PEQ), that indicates YPAO is working beneficially. If xbox sounds harsh that could just be how the xbox sound is mixed.

Rather than pillows, I'd put the mic on the top of your sofa's back rest. That's essentially at ear level. I wouldn't use pillows. They're very soft and in the vicinity of the mic could affect the sound.

Running YPAO with high EQ shouldn't cause louder test tones. However I don't understand halting YPAO because it was too loud. Yes they are pretty loud but it shouldn't damage anything. If it damaged a speaker, my guess is the speaker was defective.

I don't think the speaker levels affect the loudness of the test tones. The test tones are produced at a calibrated level, which YPAO uses to set the speaker levels. That's why the speaker levels are different after you run YPAO -- it changes them. If the speaker levels prior to running YPAO affected test tone loudness, it would never work right after the first time.

Regarding YPAO setting your speakers to +6.5 and +7.5db, and your sub to -7db, that indicates your sub is turned up way too loud and YPAO is trying to compensate. It couldn't fix it by just cutting the sub or boosting the speakers, so it was trying to do both.

Turn your sub volume down significantly and re-run YPAO. You want a YPAO-selected sub level of about 0db, or no more than +/- 2db.

Re-run YPAO with (a) your sub volume knob turned down somewhat, (b) with the calibration mic on your sofa seat back. Try first EQ set to flat, and if that doesn't help, re-run it with EQ set to high. High will assign the 7 EQ bands to the upper frequency spectrum to prioritize taming that.

It's better to let YPAO set it if possible. As a last resort you can play around with the graphical equalizer, but I would do that last.

The fact some of your sources sound good might indicate a source problem, not a receiver problem.

[eddy13]

Ok so do i leave the setting on peq for it to accept the settings of the ypao. Ok with ypao i think the people voices sound a tad brighter but music and all have more depth using geq the voices sound warmer and music and affect sound with less depth. I get my new center tomorrow so I will run the ypao all over again the way you told me to. Beleive it or not if you set your speaker level down the test run a little lower I ran a test after the ypao set my speaker db very high and my center went and trust me when i say i swear to god the eq sounds part of the test that are loud popping sounds almost sounded like gun shots. My center went with the test but im getting it back tomorrow. By the way let me thank you for being so nice and takign the time to help me .. By the way what do you think of my setup is it pretty decent .. Mini monitors v3 for mains cc370 center and atoms for rears and vtf2 sub with yammie rxv 1400 with panny rp91 dvd player... By the way I have been running prologic 2 and all my movies with the center that the dealer lent me until i get my new one he gave me the cc170 which is 2 models below and a version 2 . This center does not match tonaaly with my mini monitors

[joema]

Eddy I listened to Paradigm Monitor 3s, and they were very good. They weren't bright or harsh at all. Combined with the VTF-2, you have a very good system. I can't explain the center channel blowing. If you feel better, go ahead and turn down the speaker levels before running YPAO, although it shouldn't be necessary.

[Influence]

Dumb question, but when you run this calibration tool, how high do you have the master volume set? Or does this YPAO take over master volume settings as well. From what you are saying, it sounds like the overall volume level when calibrating is WAY too high. You should not be blowing out tweeters and stuff when calibrating the unit. I think anything around 75-80dB is high enough or a proper calibration.

As for your setup, it should be great for music and movies once you get it all set up. Just don't crank the mini monitors too loud. They are still a relatively small speaker with a rated input capacity of only 100 watts or so (don't recall). Also, make sure you have your crossover points set high enough (80Hz is no problem for the speakers you have as you don't want to pound the minis, atoms or CC with much lower than 60 hz or so at any type of SPL level.

[joema]

Originally posted by Influence
...when you run this calibration tool, how high do you have the master volume set? Or does this YPAO take over master volume settings as well.... It takes over master volume control. E.g. if you turn master volume off, it still makes the same tones at the same volume.

It won't run at all unless the mic is connected. I assume it makes real time adjustments to the test tone volume based on the measured loudness. Otherwise there'd be a huge variation in volume since speakers vary widely in efficiency. My speakers are more efficient than the Paradigms Eddie has, yet it's not damagingly loud during calibration. I'd estimate not more than about 80db, but some of the tones are impulse, popping-like sounds so it might sound louder. I'll check the loudness with a meter the next time I run it.

[eddy13]

Well When watchign movies i set the volume level of the yamaha 1400 to -20to -18 db . When i show off at about -15 max. Now when i do the ypao calibration it puts up my master volume pretty freaking high it looks liek its runs the test at 0 db. Now when i try to turn the master volume down during or in the beginning fo the calibration it gives me a error it does not allow me to tone down the master volume...

[tdekany]

Originally posted by eddy13
Well When watchign movies i set the volume level of the yamaha 1400 to -20to -18 db . When i show off at about -15 max. Now when i do the ypao calibration it puts up my master volume pretty freaking high it looks liek its runs the test at 0 db. Now when i try to turn the master volume down during or in the beginning fo the calibration it gives me a error it does not allow me to tone down the master volume...

Does the display says 0 db? I can't belive that.

[ptgraphics]

Helo all. This is my first post here.

I have the Yamaha 1400. I am also looking to get a new sub, I just don't know which one yet. The 1400 sets itself to "0" during YPAO because that is what the "reference" point is set to. It adjusts all speakers according to how loud or soft the mic picks up the tones at this level (at least that is my understanding). When I ran YPAO it set my fronts to +4. If it blows your speaker by using the test tones it sounds like the speaker can't handle watts/channel of the Yamaha. YPAO worked great for me but it did put my rears at "large" and my sub was too low, so I changed both after the tests were done.

PAT

[eddy13]

well it blew my center and my center is rated at 120 watts and it didnt blow my left and right it thats rated at 100 watts. But when the dealer opened up the center he said that the tweeter opened up and that was a factory problem. He said it wa sa defect. SO i guess the loud test tones with this speaker ebing defective caused the center to go. Anyways when i run the test tones i make sure i lower my speaker levels and the test tones are at a comftorable level...

[eddy13]

Ok I have something weird to update. When doing the test tones through avia and through the yamaha 1400 for calibrating. I find that my left speaker runs half a decibal lower than my right speaker. and just to check if the distances had anything to do with this. I switched speakers from right to left and the same problem followed the speaker of it being half a decibal lower than my other. When running ypao one time I remember it setting my mains half a decibal apart... Can this be a normal thing. I believe that each same product are not always created equal so perhaps one of my other speaker is a half a decibal sensitive Should I worry at all about this... I guess you can have 5 same model speaker and each one might sound a tad different.... What do you think about the deciabl issue..

[eddy13]

My mains are Paradigm Mini Monitors..

[eddy13]

joema I have a question..... since i have atoms as rears and there measured at 80 watts and my cc370 is measured at 120 and my mini monitors are at 100 watts. Wouldnt the test tones be harmful to my rears as they handle about 80 watts and these testones are being omitted at 0db volume level. I have ran the test numerous times and my rears seem ok. Heres the last reading that I received... By the way i feel that my speakers since this last test have become a little warmer compared to the bright sound i was getting...... Also why does the ypao vary so much when i do eq test numerous times the numbers at times are completely different each time you run it and sometimes it only makes changes to like 4 or 5 freq ranges out of the 7...

Front Left 125 +4, 160 +2, 630-4, 1.6 +2, 4 +4,

Front Right 100 +4,160 -3, 500 +3, 630 -2.5, 800 +2, 4 +3, 13 -2

Center 80 -3, 125 +3.5, 250 -7.0, 800 -2.0 ,2.5 +3, 6.3 +4, 10 -7.0

SR 80 -6.5, 100 +4, 400 -2, 630 +3.5, 1.6 -2.0, 2.5 +4.5, 6.3 +3.0

SL 80 -5, 125 +4.0, 315 +4.0, 1.6 -2, 2.5 +3.5 ,6.3 +3.0, 16 +3.5

Also if theres a reading in the upper freq range of +6.5 or 7.0 is this abnormal as on one of my test it made this change to my main i beleive it was a 125 freq range and it did a 6 or 6.5 . Are the above readings pretty average... By the way after this last eq test i feel that the bright sound has been further toned down since the last test..